Visual Studio .NET provides an incredibly rich working environment. Although
creating applications using the .NET Framework doesn't require the use
of Visual Studio .NET, it's a lot easier, and more fun, to use Visual Studio
.NET as your development environment. To get the most out of Microsoft Visual
Studio .NET, you will most likely wish to tailor it to suit your style of working.
With the wide variety of configuration options, both familiar and new, you'll
want to take the time to examine some of the various options.

In this chapter, you will be introduced to many of the different configurations
and learn about the various settings in Visual Studio .NET. Along the way, you'll
also learn about many of the different tools provided by Visual Studio .NET
that make your job of creating applications easier.

This chapter introduces many of the tools and windows provided, presented in
the order you will most likely encounter them as you work with the product.

Configuring Visual Studio .NET

The first time you start Visual Studio .NET, you will be presented with a profile
page. On this page, you can create a profile of yourself as a developer. Although
you could keep the default (Visual Studio Developer), you might want to select
the Visual Basic Developer profile so that the environment will automatically
adapt a look and feel similar to the old Visual Basic 6.0 Integrated Development
Environment (IDE). Figure 3.1 shows an
example of the My Profile page.

Although you can use any profile you like, we've selected the Visual
Basic Developer profile, and when we describe keystrokes throughout this book,
they may not work if you've selected a different profile. In addition, you
can always return to this page by selecting the My Profile link on the Visual
Studio .NET Start page.

The My Profile Page

In addition to the profile, the My Profile page allows you to set some
overall environment defaults. You can, for example, select an existing profile
and then modify the window or keyboard layouts individually.

Table 3.1 provides a list of some of the options on the My Profile
screen.

Table 3.1 Fields on the My Profile Screen

Field

Description

Profile

Set this field to the general window and keyboard layout you'd like to
use. You can modify any of the specifics (window or keyboard layout)
individually, as well. You have the option of choosing from Visual Studio,
Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual InterDev, VS Macro, Student, and Visual C#
developer.

Set the default filter for help content. This determines which language
definitions and examples show up in the Help window when you press F1 or view
any help topics.

Show Help

Choose to view help in a separate window or integrated into the IDE.

At Startup

Select the item that's displayed when you start Visual Studio .NET. You
have the option of showing one of the following: Show Start Page, Load Last
Loaded Solution, Show Open Project Dialog Box, Show New Project Dialog Box, or
Show Empty Environment.

Visual Studio Start Page

The Visual Studio Start page, shown in Figure
3.2, is the page you'll see when you start Visual Studio, if you've
selected to show this page at startup.

Figure 3.2 The Visual Studio Start
page allows you to start a recent project, open an existing project, or create
a new project.

The menu on the left side of this page includes a number of links, including
"What's New" help topics. You can see a list of online community
links, where you can get assistance with Visual Studio .NET and many other
Microsoft products. You can get the headlines for MSDN news, search the MSDN
site for information related to Visual Studio, download sample code and
tutorials, check out what's new in XML Web Services, and even get a list of
service providers that can host your ASP.NET Web sites. You can get back to the
My Profile page to modify your profile from this menu, as well. Note that many
of these links will only work when you are connected to the Internet.

In the body of this page, you can select a recent project, create a new
project, or open an existing project by selecting it from the file system.

TIP

After you have loaded a project, the Start Page will disappear from your IDE.
To bring it back, right-click in the toolbar area of VS .NET and choose the Web
toolbar. In the address area of the Web toolbar, type vs:/default.htm.

Creating a New Project

If you choose File, New, Project from the Visual Studio .NET menu bar, you
will see a dialog box like the one shown in Figure
3.3. When putting together an application in Visual Studio .NET, you will
choose one or many of the different types of projects to make up your solution.
For example, you can create an ASP.NET Web application that also uses a Class
Library project and an ASP.NET Web Service project as well. A solution can therefore
be made up of one or more projects.

Figure 3.3 The New Project dialog
box allows you to create a new solution starting with a particular project type.

On the left side of this screen, you can choose the language you will use to
create your new project. Depending on the options you selected when you
installed your Visual Studio environment, you can choose from Visual Basic .NET,
C#, C++, and any other .NET programming language you have installed. Microsoft
isn't the only supplier of .NET-supported languagesother vendors have
written languages that work just as well in Visual Studio .NET as the languages
provided by Microsoft.

On the right side of this screen, you can choose a default template for the
type of project you will be creating. You have many different templates to
choose from, as described in the next section.

If you choose the ASP.NET Web Application project type, you will be asked to
provide a project name. You will also be prompted to specify the Web server
name where you wish to place this new Web site. The example in Figure
3.2 is creating a Web root in http://localhost/ on the current machine.
Whichever Web server you choose, you must have installed the .NET Framework
on that machine prior to creating a Web project using Visual Studio .NET.

In this book, you will investigate the ASP.NET Web Application project type
in great detail. In addition, you will also look at creating mobile Web
applications, ASP.NET Web Services, and Class Library projects.